The present invention relates to a telephoning method, intended to facilitate possibility to offer subscribers of a telephone network or similar a novel service, preferably for incoming calls/communication.
On certain occasions one might for example wish to advertise in a magazine with regard to matter when one at the same time wishes to maintain certain anonymity, which here is chosen as a descriptive scenario, although also replying to advertisements, date line recordings etc. are some out of many other applicable situations. Such advertisements may be of the type contact advertisements, search for employment, sales, rental etc., when there are cases when it is unsuitable or not desirable to make it possible to identify the advertiser, something which normally can not be prevented when the ordinary telephone number of the advertiser is stated. At the same time it is in many cases desirable and advantageous if interested parties are given possibility of direct and immediate telephone response, which normally increases the efficiency of an advertisement considerably. For example, with regard to contact advertisements, which often are a sensitive matter for the advertiser and for which anonymity is desirable, today various types of xe2x80x98contact data basesxe2x80x99 are used whereby a forwarding company, normally for a fee, transfer incoming replies by mail or via a pay number (e.g. 071) for a fee gives a calling party ability of recordal of a reply, which may be played back or in any other way passed on to the advertiser. However, this is a complicated, indirect and expensive method, which most certainly prevents many interested parties from replying. There is also a certain risk the mailed or recorded replies may be misused.
One object of the present invention is to disclose a method which maintains all advantages with an immediate, spontaneous and direct telephone response without interfering with the wish of the advertiser to avoid giving away the identity of the advertiser by stating a telephone number in the advertisement. A further object is to offer this service in a simple and non-complicated manner, and by making use of the latent capacity which is available in a telephone network.
This includes the possibility of offering a subscriber a temporary/occasional xe2x80x9c020xe2x80x9d number/status and a temporary/occasional priority status/address with regard to xe2x80x9cInternetxe2x80x9d and similar services.
The telephoning method according to the present invention is intended to facilitate possibility to offer subscribers of a telephone network this novel service for incoming calls, and it is mainly characterized in that a subscriber by means of dial-up of a predetermined booking number is offered possibility to state a desired time period, preferably in the form of a starting date and an ending date for a temporary/occasional telephone number/address (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9ctemporaryxe2x80x9d telephone number, that the subscriber preferably upon completed ordering operation immediately receives a verbal message related to allocated temporary telephone number, which during the time period facilitates incoming calls, preferably without influencing the possibility of incoming and outgoing calls with use of the normal telephone number of the subscriber. Desired time period is preferably stated by a subscriber as a starting date and a terminating date, preferably by input via an existing keypad on the subscriber""s telephone.
The subscriber is advantageously offered, apart from starting date and closing date, possibility to also state time interval within a twenty-four hour period, incoming calls being switched to the temporary telephone number only within such a time interval. Desired time interval is also for this feature preferably punched in via an existing keypad on the subscriber""s telephone.